Cusslers' heroes need to save the world

FICTION

"Poseidon's Arrow" by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler. It is the greatest advance in American defense technology in decades - an attack submarine capable of incredible underwater speeds. Nothing else in any other nation's naval arsenal even comes close. There is only one problem: A key element of the prototype is missing - and the man who developed it is dead. At the same time, ships have started vanishing mid-ocean, usually never to be found again, but when they are, sometimes bodies are found aboard - burned to a crisp. What is going on? And what does it have to do with an Italian submarine that disappeared in 1943, lost at sea? Or was it? It is up to NUMA director Dirk Pitt and his team, aided by a beautiful NCIS agent and by Pitt's children, marine engineer Dirk and oceanographer Summer, to go on a desperate international chase to find the truth, from Washington to Mexico, Idaho to Panama. What they discover at the end of it is a much, much greater threat than even they imagined. If they don't succeed in their mission, the world as they know it might end up a very different place - and not a pleasant one.

"Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver. Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at 17. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.

"Flame of Sevenwaters" by Juliet Marillier. Maeve, daughter of Lord Sean of Sevenwaters, was badly burned as a child and carries the legacy of that fire in her crippled hands. After 10 years, she's returning home, having grown into a courageous, forthright woman with a special gift for gentling difficult animals. But while her body's scars have healed, her spirit remains fragile, fearing the shadows of her past. Sevenwaters is in turmoil. The fey prince Mac Dara has become desperate to see his only son, married to Maeve's sister, return to the Otherworld. To force Lord Sean's hand, Mac Dara has caused a party of innocent travelers on the Sevenwaters border to vanish - only to allow their murdered bodies to be found, one by one. When Maeve finds the body of one of the missing men in a remote part of the woods, she and her brother Finbar embark on a journey that may bring about the end of Mac Dara's reign, or lead to a hideous death.

Nonfiction

"Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter" by Melissa Francis. When Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis was 8 years old, she won the role of lifetime: playing Cassandra Cooper Ingalls, the little girl who was adopted with her brother by the Ingalls family on the world's most famous primetime soap opera, "Little House on the Prairie." Despite her age, she was already a veteran actress,moving from one Hollywood set to the next. But behind the scenes, her success was fueled by the pride, pressure and sometimes grinding cruelty of her stage mother, as fame and a mother's ambition pushed her older sister deeper into the shadows. "Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter" is a fascinating account of life as a 1980s child star. Perhaps most importantly, it's a meditation on motherhood, and the value of pushing your children: how hard should you push a child to succeed, and at what point does your help turn into harm?

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Cusslers' heroes need to save the world

The following new books are available at the Marion Public Library. 'Poseidon's Arrow' by Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler. It is the greatest advance in American defense technology in decades ? an